Artificial cotton



March 12, 1963 i RncHl ToBARl 3,080,580

ARTIFICIAL COTTON Filed April 10. 1961 United States Patent Giice 3,080,580 Patented Mar. 12, 1963 3,080,580 ARTIFICIAL COTTON Riichi Tobari, 374 Horikiri-cho Katsushika-ku, Tokyo, Japan Filed Apr. 10, 1961, Ser. No. 101,798 2 Claims. (Cl. 5--361) The present invention relates to an articial cotton for producing mattresses, cushions, armrests, packings, etc., and particularly to a stuffing material, as may well be called a resin cotton, suitable for stuiling bedding, especially quilts, as a substitute for existing natural cotton.

The usual natural cotton as stuiing material for mattresses and the like has its fibers so poor in elasticity that those items of bedding stued with such material, lose elasticity in repeated use and are incompressibly deformed: the voltune they occupy as a whole diminishes so much the more as the intermittent air between fibers themselves escapes. They are liable to lose in heat retaining capacity as well as elasticity, and for this reason it becomes necessary to carry out rewhipping from time to time in order to deliver them from such state. However, the rewhipping treatment is made often very unhealthful because of the accompanying production of ber dust, and it invites additionally unnecessary loss of bers. It is held to be another defect for the natural cotton to be moisture sensitive when it is used as stuffing material. Of the artificial cottons in use as substitutes for the natural one, the woolly nylon cotton consisting of wrinkled fibers and having the source of elasticity obtained from righting moment for deformation stress in wrinkling and compression process, is superior to the natural one indeed, but, for repeated compression it undergoes in use as stuffing material for mattresses and the like, air stand retained between fibers themselves diminishes, and so there appears the defect as with the natural one: the loss in elasticity and heat retaining capacity with time.

There are used these days suc-h mattresses with which a porous resin material like a sponge and shaped like a thick board, is stuled into the covering. This kind of mattresses, as their pores present in the stuiing are the only means for retaining air and heat fail to show the effect similar to the one natural cotton does in retaining heat by air present between fibers; furthermore, said pores communicate with one another throughout the mass, air retained therewithin is easily to be set in motion and replaced with the cold one of the outer world by a breeze for example visiting the mass. They can retain heat only unsatisfactorily.

In addition as the resin mass is thoroughly interwoven with a network of pores, the surrounding parts of the mattress will be drawn away, when the central part is pressed down, although this part may behave right resiliently, the surrounding parts (Le. parts near the edge) may not act resiliently when such part is pressed.

'I'here has now been discovered a stuffing material for mattresses and the like which is free from such defects as mentioned.

One of the objects of the present invention is to provide a stuffing material consisting of piles of many small lamentary, thin strip-shaped, etc., piece elements of porous natural or synthetic resin, the piles of collections of such elements, lie in irregular directions, producing elasticity corresponding to the resiliency of the folded portions of the elements in addition to the resiliency the filamentary elements originally have, making it feasible to produce remarkably elastic mattresses and the like, free from irrecoverable escape and loss of air from within, despite outward compression inviting voluminal decrease and loss in heat retaining or isolating capacity, and positively retaining air not only in their pores within but also between their filamentary elements themselves, to the effect that the air therewithin is not set in motion to higher degree than is necessary.

FIG. 1 is a perspective view of an illustrative embodiment of the device for cutting into pieces a plate of porous natural or synthetic resin.

FIG. 2 is a partly magnified perspective view of a collection of many small cut piece elements as an illustrative embodiment of the present invention.

FIG. 3 is a perspective view of a small cut piece element.

FIG. 4 is a magnified and longitudinal sectional View taken along line IV-IV of FIG. 3.

FIG. 5 is a perspective sectional view of a cushion specialized for seat and with stuing of the artificial cotton produced in accordance with the present invention.

A more detailed description of the present invention follows with references being made to the accompanying drawings: As synthetic resin, polyether resin is used, which is previously mixed with a foaming agent. The mixture is committed to a nozzle for extrusion in filamentary shape at low temperature, to be immediately followed by a heat treatment for foaming and porous long iilamentary elements are produced. Means for extrusion molding from the nozzle and foaming may be selected from among known processes. The long filamentary elements are cut up in pieces of suitable length. The sectional shape of these pieces may be made at will in round, square or any other shape; therefore, may well be cut up into thin strip pieces. The production of iilamentary or strip-shaped small cut piece elements may be made without using the nozzle for extrusion as follows: A polyether resin plate 2 having many communicated or uncommunicated pores 1, 1 produced by foaming the original mixture is processed into small cut pieces at a device shown in FIG. 1 consisting of a pair of confronting upper and lower rollers 3, 4 rotating against each other, a baseplate 5 and a rolling cutter with many circular blades 7, 7 each 2 mm. to 4 mm. apart from one another.

With this device the processing of the plate goes in this way: Polyether resin plate comes in the foreground of the drawing into the opening between rotating upper and lower rollers 3, 4 onto baseplate 5 to reach rolling cutter 8 and be cut up by rotating circular blades 7, 7' into iilamentary elements 10, 10 2 mm. to 4 mm. in width.

In case the polyether resin plate is thicker, iilamentary elements 10, 10 may be re-committed to the pair of said upper and lower rollers 3, 4 to be re-cut into elements of a square section of 2 mm.2 to 4 mm?. As tilamentary elements thus obtained are long, they are cut 50 mm. to 100 mm. in length and many such dimension elements -9, 9 are produced.

Many such small cut piece elements are made to go in dispersed flight by `blows of a suitable blowing device and fall in irregular direction in piles, and these piles are collected las they are and given -a slight compression which, as shown in FIG. 2, gives many folds 11, 11' to said smlall cut piece elements 9, 9 whose roughened surface projections 13, 13 over the elements are e11- tangled; those projections 13, 13 being produced as the original porous material mass with many spherical envelopes 12, 12 of pores 1, 1 is cut u-p. A complete mattress is finished, when it-s cloth or the like covering is stued with piles of such small cut piece elements 9, 9 Mattresses, etc. with such stufling material produced in accordance with the present invention are not only rich in elasticity because of thepresence of pores 1, 1' elastic ascribable to their own bodies on one hand and to their given folds 11, 11' on the other, but also free from possible deformation thanks to said small cut piece and small cu-t piece elements 9, 9'

elements lbeing entangled with one another by .their roughened surface projections 13, 13 They manifest nearly uniform elasticity in any part of the body, and therefore, even when two or more people sleep thereon, yand one of them tosses in sleep, there may be very little possibility for the other or others to =be `disturbed in sleep because of the uncomfortable deformation of .the mattress.

A-s the mattresses stuffed with such material allow folding or compression into any dorm and specically into very smjall dimensiom'packing of them for transporation is easily made.

The material 4is especially suitable for stufng quilts.

In producing mattresses in this way by stufiing with piles 'of many such small cut piece elements of irregular direction, it is feasible, unlike with the usual type spongy material in board form, to control Iat will the elasticity of the nished mattress 4by adjusting the amount of the small cut piece elements to be stuffed. Of course, they may be `additionally worked at necessary points and preferably with threads to assure compactness as with natural cotton. An envelope 15, of synthetic resin furnished with small =holes 14, 14', 14", as illustrated in FIG. 5, may be used with convenience at home to be ii-lled with the piles of such small irregularly directed cut piece elements and made into coverings or mattresses,

What is claimed is:

1. A method of producing stuted body-resting furniture, comprising in combination, mixing a polyether resin with -a foaming agent; forming a cellular resin plate from said mixture; passing said resin plate between a rolling zone to la cutting station; cutting said plate with `a plurality of rotating cutting means at said cutting station into a multiplicity of elongated regular shaped cellular filaments having 4roughened surfaces; dispersing said elongated filaments by blows so that they vfall in piles in entangled irregular directions; slightly compressing said entangled piles; and stuing said piles int-o said furniture part.

2. A cushioning material comprising `a stuffing and -a cover `for said stuffing, `said st-uing consisting of a multiplicity of randomly entangled regular shaped polyether foam resin filaments having folds along their length and having roughened surfaces to eect interlocking between contacting laments.

References Cited in the le of this patent UNITED STATES PATENTS 2,147,362. Bloomberg Feb. 14, 1939 2,159,213 Howard M-ay 23, 1939 2,476,855 Gaardener et al July 19, 1949 2,612,966 Nicol c Oct.. 7, 19,52 

1. A CUSHIONING MATERIAL COMPRISING A STUFFING AND A COVER FOR SAID STUFFING, SAID STUFFING CONSISTING OF A MULTIPLICITY OF RANDOMLY ENTANGLED REGULAR SHAPED POLYETHER FOAM RESIN ELEMENTS HAVING FOLDS ALONG THEIR LENGTH AND HAVING ROUGHENED SURFACES TO EFFECT INTERLOCKING BETWEEN CONTACTING FILAMENTS. 